by Alix E. Harrow ★★★★★
Ever since her debut novel The Ten Thousand Doors of January, which captivated me and was my without-a-doubt favorite book of 2019, I have been a fan of Alix E. Harrow. With lofty expectations in tow, her second novel The Once and Future Witches satisfied but failed to strike the same chord. Thus, I recalibrated a little, and I went into Starling House with cautiously optimistic expectations. I'm happy to say that it exceeded those expectations, landing for me in the same lofty strata as January as well as being reminiscent in some ways of that excellent book.
The novel centers on a 26-year-old protagonist named Opal, who is scraping by in a small Kentucky town called Eden. Opal never knew her father, and her mother was killed in a car crash when Opal was only 15, leaving her to forge documents in order to obtain custody of her 5-year-old brother Jasper. Now, 11 years later, the two are eeking out an existence, living in a motel room free of charge thanks to a bet her mother won with the owner, pillaging the shoddy continental breakfast hot chocolate packets for some sustenance, and trying to make do on Opal's meager wages from a part-time job at the local Tractor Supply store.
Opal is a survivor, with one goal in life: protect her brother and get him out of the "dead-end bad-luck bullshit town" that is Eden. As she says early on, "People like me have to make two lists: what they need and what they want. You keep the first list short, if you're smart, and you burn the second one....I have one list, with one thing on it, and it keeps me plenty busy."
Many downtrodden towns are centered around a single blue collar industry, and Eden is no different. In its case, the industry is coal. Eden is dominated by the local power plant, which spews contaminants into the local river while the inhabitants turn a blind eye, since the plant accounts for the majority of the jobs and sustains the economy of the town. Jasper is asthmatic, which continues to worsen under the coal-dust air of Eden, adding urgency to Opal's need to find a way to get him to a better place.
Against this backdrop, we are thrust into Opal's life and story, not entirely sure where things might be headed. We know that there sits an old house on the outskirts of town (Starling House, of course), rumored to be haunted, and about which there are as many stories as there are people in the town. We know that someone lives there, alone, a "Boo Radley-ish creature who was damned first by his pretentious name..., second by his haircut..., and third by the dark rumor that his parents died strangely, and strangely young." We know a previous occupant of the house wrote a children's book, so terrifying and disturbing that when it was considered for an animated adaptation "little kids puked during the early screeners so the whole project was pulled". And we know that Opal has been dreaming about the house since she was 12, and that it seems to have some type of magical connection to her.
Like with her previous books, Harrow once again involves some level of magic, mysticism, and multiple worlds in her storytelling and setting. As the muddied history of Eden begins to become more clear, and the purpose of Starling House and its connection to Opal's life laid bare, the story eventually clicks into place. Harrow does a great job of pacing and gradual revelation of information, such that part of the mystery is figuring out where things are going. Once that is clear, the plotting is crisp and thoughtful and satisfying.
Harrow's writing style strikes exactly the right tone with me. Her characters are real, her storytelling compelling, and she's able to capture authentic relationships at the heart of each of her books. There are dozens of turns of phrase in Starling House that make me envious of her ability. I don't know if she's a genius from which these things just naturally spew, or if she meticulously refines her prose to choose exactly the right word more often than not, but either way we're the beneficiaries of the end result. She also has a Stephen King-like ability to blend the mystical into a story set in reality and make it feel normal, a task more difficult than it may seem.
There were a lot of components of Starling House that reminded me of The Ten Thousand Doors of January. Opal and January are both duty-bound young women who discover their true identity over the course of the novels, while taking fuller control of their lives and manifesting their own destiny. Both fight against wealthy antagonists who are powerful due to their station in society and morally bankrupt when it comes to the depths to which they will stoop and the threats that they will level in order to achieve their self-serving goals. Both novels are grounded in our world, but feature (or suggest) passages to another. Make no mistake, they're wholly different, but I can see how the same person wrote both.
It's a genre-blending book as well. There is one passage in the novel, a tongue-in-cheek meta reference to the book that you're reading, that says "The hairdresser heard it was a romance, and the old meter man is hoping for horror. A member of the Historical Society claims it's a history of the town." In addition to those genres, it has elements of magic and fantasy and mystery as well, and it's composed with a level of quality that would allow it to stand with any critically acclaimed literature of the day. In short, there's probably something for everybody, assuming you're not a one-dimensional reader.
So how does Starling House stack up? It's really good! I don't know yet if it's January/book-of-the-year good, but it will certainly be a Top 10 book this year for me. While the pacing feels deliberate and the story gradually revealed, it's also a tidy 308 pages, something Harrow appreciates in the acknowledgements, thanking her editor specifically for helping her see that she "didn't really need four bedrooms" (in her house of a book). The cast of characters is memorable, and the multi-layered plot is efficiently and effectively pulled together with a satisfying conclusion. I will likely need to let the foundation settle for a bit on this one before I come to a final conclusion on where it ranks overall this year, but it's an easy 5-star read for me and highly recommended (especially during spooky Halloween season!).
As a final aside, if you don't typically read the acknowledgements, do so here. And if you're one of those weird people who likes to read the acknowledgements first, wait and save it this time. Harrow's tribute to the creation of her novel is thoughtful and creative, and it closes with a beautiful dedication to her family. It's a wonderful parting gift from the book that will leave your heart full.
Next Best of 2023: #7 - Rubicon
Previous Best of 2023: #9 - Exiles
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